The invention relates to a device for latching a first front connector to a second rear connector together. More precisely, the invention relates to a device for latching a first front connector to a complementary second rear connector.
In a general way, an electronic apparatus, such as a computer, is connected to at least one peripheral apparatus by a connector device, for example in order to exchange data with the peripheral apparatus. The connector device comprises a first front connector equipped with a series of female pins and a second rear connector equipped with a complementary series of male pins, so that the front and rear connectors are fitted to be connected together.
This kind of connector device is commonly used with electronic apparatus of all kinds because of their rapid connect-disconnect capability. However, it is highly desirable that such a connector device does not disconnect inadvertently since this terminates operation of the associated electronic apparatus.
A device for latching a front connector to a complementary rear connector, to prevent an inopportune and inadvertent disconnection of the connectors, is described in International Patent Publication No. WO2008/145516. The device comprises a front latching element supported by the front connector, and a rear latching element supported by the rear connector.
The front latching element is a female element which delimits a housing opened axially towards the rear and in which are arranged a plurality of latching fingers. Complementarily, the rear latching element is a male element which delimits a latching notch and which is mounted movable axially on the rear connector, from rear to front. The rear latching element is mounted from a rear unlatching position to a front latching position in which the latching fingers are engaged into the notch to axially immobilize the front and the rear connectors together.
The latching device further comprises an unlatching member which is mounted movable axially on the rear latching element, from rear to front, in order to disengage fingers from the notch with a view to unlatch first and second connectors. Moreover, the latching device comprises a multifunction spring for i) returning automatically the rear latching element towards its rear unlatching position and for ii) returning the unlatching member towards the rear.
The multifunction spring comprises a first set of legs for retaining the multifunction spring on the rear connector, a second set of legs for returning the rear unlatching element towards its rear unlatching position, and a third set of legs for returning the unlatching member towards the rear.
An advantage of this latching device is its accessibility for the hand of the user, so that the latching device is convenient and easy to unlatch even if the rear connector, or the front connector, is hardly accessible. However, the multifunction spring comprises a lot of set of thin legs, and thus the multifunction spring might be fragile and difficult to manufacture.